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01/08/2018

I feel ill-equipped to preview Caves of Qud (COQ) because the only other pure roguelike game that I’ve played in any real depth was Ancient Domains of Mystery, a few months ago (A game that I found to be more initially accessible than Caves of Qud) and I’m glad I did, because compared to this game, ADOM was a breeze.

The amount of customisation in COQ is breath-taking. You can truly be pretty much whatever you want, as the game is set far into the future, all manner of cybernetics, factions and creatures are out in the world to be discovered. This leads to the main issue I had with the game which was the lore.

The game is crazily deep, with many words unrecognisable, making feel like I should have read an accompanying novel which introduced me to the lands, items and, quite frankly a general index of the world that I was about to digitally embark upon. It…is…DENSE.

This isn’t to say it’s not good, though. A quick glance at the Steam reviews show that thousand of players are pumping dozens and even hundreds of hours into COQ, although I can’t help but note that a lot of these seem to be seasoned players of the genre and I feel that this is where my lack of knowledge of roguelike games comes into play in that I would be taking far more from my time with the game if I was hips deep into Rogue games.

The controls seem straightforward enough but the more you play, the more you end up finding certain keys to actions and the more your knowledge of the in-game artifacts and ways increase, although at quite a slow pace. I found myself dying regularly and wandering into places with such full-on descriptions that I couldn’t really produce a mental image in my mind, which I could with ADOM, for example.

The sound design is absolutely fantastic, with ambient soundscapes, distorted echoes and dusty footsteps really adding to the immersion and the narrative background and depth is mind-boggling, but this isn’t really a game you can dip into for ten minutes as it demands time and patience to reveal itself to the player.

Summary

If you are a fan of the genre, COQ has a massive amount to offer even in its current early access state (the developer has said that the game will remain in early access until the main plot is entirely playable, although there are enough content, quests and replayability already to play for days on end) but if you do decide to make Caves of Qud your first dip into the roguelike genre, pleased be aware that you will need to make an effort to click with its charms, although if it does work for you, there’s a wealth of clever design and a genuinely unique world to lose yourself in.